I have a G4 PowerMac Sawtooth which was given to me, it has an OWC 1 GHZ. PowerPC CPU processor board with the gold colored heatsink and single fan. It has 1GB of PC-133 RAM and the latest firmware installed and two IDE Drives, and OSX 10.5.6. But I can't use it. The G4 chimes but video never comes up unless I hold down the internal MB reset button, and then it loses the decade, year, date, time, and other info. Then video works one time until the set is shut off. I've put a new battery in, no change. I've tried five different ATI, and Radion 7500 AGP and Apple Rage II PCI cards nothing is defective, but nothing gives video after the chime. One log file stated something about a cache failure, but I never had the original G4 / 350 MHZ. CPU card to see if it is the OWC CPU board cache that is at fault. For the last year and a half it has just been sitting here while I use my older G3 / 450 MHZ with 640MB of PC-100 RAM running OSX 10.4.11 which gets slower and slower after an hour or so, until the twerling cursor just stays on continuously... What does my G4 need to function properly???

It is possible you have a power supply failure. My MDD was doing the same thing unless I reset the PMU. There is a tutorial here on checking the PS - D275729F-09DA-4FBB-96B3-BEEEB2C04619.html It for a MDD, but I would think it would be useful for your situation.Do you have an Intuos tablet connected? The drivers for that might be causing the problem and should be updated to the newest driver available

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Hello Burnolid,
Well, yes, if you have an AGP PowerMac G4 then any AGP video card will FIT into that AGP port.... The question is to know if that card is Mac Compatible ?
Where did you get the card ? Did you get it our of another mac ?
or from someone who got it out of a Mac, then yes, it should be compatible with any Mac with a AGP port.

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Hi their isnt that much you can do you need to check whats running on your computer and delete software you dont need as having this running in the background will slow it down loads, the only other option you have would be to install more ram or even a new processor.<br /><br />if you go to www.crucial.com<br />then scan your computer on their site it will then tell you how much ram you can install i use this site when im building computers.<br /><br />let me know how you get on or if you need further assistance ok<br /><br />plz rate this solution as i have a whole page of unrated posts, thanks<br /><br />

You need to remove the Heatsink from the CPU and re apply heatsink compound to both the CPU and the heatsink then replace the heatsink onto the CPU. the reason for the overheating and shutdown is that the connection between the heatsink and the CPU has become "Aged" and no longer transfers the heat like it should

Hi, have you used the same motherboard in the two towers? sounds to me like you may have a couple of faulty capacitors on the board.
Open the case and study the capacitors closely
[with a magnifying glass if need be] capacitors fail very often when heated. they are the round components that sit in sets of 5, 6, or more in a row on the board. if any are bulging from the top or bottom, then its time for a new board.
Regards mistyman